THE VARSITY

He says:
“What’ll ya have!? What’ll ya have!?” This is what the servers scream at you as you approach the order counter of the Varsity, the famous Atlanta grease-pit and world’s largest drive-in restaurant. I guess all the yelling is supposed to add to the Varsity’s rugged charm, but it’s rather disorienting for a first-time visitor. Besides, there are 8 types of hot dogs, 9 types of burgers, 9 different sandwiches, and a bazillion combo platters on their giant menu, so it’s hard enough deciding what to order without someone demanding every 3 seconds what’ll I have.

The Varsity is the apotheosis of your cheap, neighborhood diner: a multi-level, multi-room expanse of white Formica tables, napkin dispensers, and speckled black and white tile. Let’s just say if I were a teenager, I would be here every Friday night until 1 AM, probably talking about video games.

She says:
Not that my expectations were very high, but the Varsity’s food is just bad. I can best describe both the chicken fingers and fries I ate as miserably dry and shriveled. I alternated dousing each in honey-mustard sauce, BBQ sauce, and ketchup, but nothing seemed to help. The chocolate milkshake tasted artificial, certainly not chocolaty, and definitely not creamy. Most of it ended up in the garbage.

He says:
At the Varsity, you get what you pay for. The chili in my $1.85 chili cheeseburger was obviously from a can, tasteless and soaked through in neon orange oil. A thin slice of barely-melted American cheese sat on a tiny beef patty. My $2.05 chili cheese dog was equally bland. The one surprise of the meal was the onion rings, which were crunchy and greasy in all the right ways.

We say:
What’ll ya have? Better food, please.



The Varsity
61 North Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30308
www.thevarsity.com